


The Vault

by fantasybees



Category: Deception (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I thought there was a missing scene and so I wrote it, Missing Scene, definite background Kay/Cam, maybe background Kay/Cam, spoilers for ep 7 and 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasybees/pseuds/fantasybees
Summary: Spoilers for episode 7 and 8. After finishing his escape from the Vault, Cameron isn't doing as well as everyone thought he was doing and has to go to the hospital. Unsurprisingly, Jonathan will do anything to go with him.Surprisingly, an FBI agent might follow him there.





	The Vault

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends!! Just a quick warning, I chose not to mark this as Graphic depictions of violence, but there is a description of asphyxiation if that bothers anyone!

The last thing Cameron saw was his brother’s face.

 

_Cam. CAMERON._

Jonathan pounded on the door in shock and horror as he watched his twin slump boneless to the ground. The air pressure in the room was dropping rapidly: 30, 15, 12, 8. And it was his fault his brother was locked in there. His fists slammed against the bulletproof glass with no fruition. Vaguely, he heard someone— his family— start speaking.

 

“We’re locked out of the system.”

 

“CAMERON.” The mystery woman had already stolen his life. Jonathan couldn’t let her take Cam’s life too.

 

“Cam. CAM!” This was just another escape, something they had done a thousand times before. The odds were stacked against their favor, but that’s how it always was. Tricks were only fun if there were consequences to avoid.

 

But this consequence was too high, the price too steep. And then Kay was in the way. _She’s trying to help_ , Jonathan thought, _but she’s not. It’s just another performance._

 

“Come on, Cam! You can do this, c’mon.” He kept beating against the glass, and his heart stopped for just a moment as he watched his brother’s form move. It was sluggish, but Cam moved. He hadn’t given up yet. “That’s it, Cam. Cam, turn the dials then turn the wheel.” Sound stopped processing to Jonathan, just a constant stream of murmurs as he watched Cameron fight for his life.

 

His heart soared as he watched Cameron turn the dials, _he was going to do it._ But then he heard a small hiss and his eyes strayed to the barometer of the room. It had dropped to zero and when Jonathan found his eyes on Cam again, his eyes were shut.

 

“No” he whispered. “NO.” But suddenly it didn’t matter, because the door clicked and he threw it open. Jonathan rushed to his twin, gathered him in his arms.

 

“Come on. You’re alright.” This was not the first time Cameron had almost died in an escape gone wrong, but this was certainly the closest. Jonathan held his brother tight as he heaved in large gasps of air.

 

“I’m sorry.” Cam gasped out after a brief second. His arms seemed to be scrambling for a purchase to hold himself up, but lack of oxygen had sapped almost all of his strength. Now that he had noticed, Johnny could feel his brother’s body losing strength. Cam suddenly went lax against him, head lolling against his shoulder and body becoming dead weight in his arms. Johnny panicked.

 

“No, no no no no no.” Johnny laid Cameron on the ground, being careful with his head. “Come on Cam, stay with me.” No response from Cameron and he threw a frantic glance over his shoulder, “Someone call 911.”

 

He heard Gunter repeat his request and Dina’s voice, strangely calm in the face of disaster, report their location and emergency. He heard Kay take over the line, trying to win a faster response time with her status with the FBI. He heard all of this, but his eyes never strayed from his twin’s face. Johnny tapped gently on Cam’s cheek, “Hey, hey, hey. You got to wake up, Cameron. No sleeping on the job.”

 

The magician’s face didn’t even twitch, furthering Jonathan’s panic. “No, no, no.” Fear was coursing through his veins as he checked for a pulse, hands steady in the face of danger, always steady. He found Cam’s heartbeat to be even, and making a guess, he thought the pulse felt strong.

 

Dina was back on the phone, having a silent argument with Gunter and Jordan, so Johnny called to Kay. “He’s not waking up, but I think h—he’s okay?” His voice broke mid-sentence and he cursed the lack of control. He wasn’t too great of a performer under extreme amounts of pressure; that’s why Cam was the face of the operation. Johnny grabbed Cam’s arm fiercely, trying to keep himself from freaking out. _Cameron’s okay. He’s breathing. His heart’s beating._

 

Kay missed the slip in his composure and reached for Cameron’s neck, feeling for his pulse just as Johnny had done moments ago. She held her hand there for a moment, and seemingly satisfied with what she felt, nodded her head. “His pulse is stable for now and we have an ambulance rushing here now.” Johnny noticed that she didn’t withdraw her hand.

 

She knelt down next to Cameron on his other side, examining his face intensely for all of the bruises that littered it. “If I had to guess, these past couple of days haven’t been easy for him. Five minutes rest until the paramedics get here couldn’t kill him.” Johnathan pretended not to notice that she sounded like she was trying to convince herself too, so instead he just grabbed his brother’s hand and hoped for the best. His brain, always looking for a solution, and always making one was completely silent. There wasn’t anything he could do.

 

Bathed in this strange calm, he barely noticed that many more FBI agents flooded the room, or that moments after that, a team of paramedics rushed in. “Take a step back, please.” A short pleasant woman with dark hair requested. He stood and stepped back, still within reach of his brother. Her counterpart, a taller man with hardened eyes, was rattling off medical jargon as he shined a flashlight into his brother’s forcibly opened eyes and over his skin. They had him onto a stretcher and in a neck brace quicker than Jonathan could process, and folded the stretcher up to wheel him to the ambulance.

 

He made his way to follow when his arm was roughly grabbed from behind, almost making him fall from the sudden change in momentum. He ripped his arm from the grasp before quickly turning to face his attacker.

 

A man from Agent Deakins’ team looked back at him with contempt in his eyes. “Where do you think you’re going?” He sneered.

 

Johnny wanted nothing more to shred this guy, but he knew he would have to butter this guy up if he wanted a chance to stay with Cam. Quickly shifting gears from anger to groveling, Johnny begged. “Please, I just have to stay with my brother. I have to make sure he’s okay.” He saw Kay’s and Deakins’ heads turn at the sound of his voice.

 

“Are you kidding? You are a convicted murderer, and now an escaped one, considering you intentionally broke your tracking anklet. Against the wall.” The agent shoved Jonathan roughly against the wall, grabbing roughly for his hands and snapping a pair of handcuffs around his wrists tightly.

 

“Hey, hey, hey! What the hell are you doing?” Jonathan already knew that Deakins was a woman to fear, but even the expectation wasn’t enough to prepare him for the full force of her voice.

 

“I’m sorry, Agent Deakins, I just need to make sure that he’s alright. I haven’t seen hi—“ Johnny was interrupted by Deakins abruptly.

 

“Not you, Black. I’m talking to my agent.” Black could see her disapproving look from out of the corner of his eye and he was glad that he wasn’t on the receiving end of the look.

 

“I’m detaining our convict! He set off his tracker, he’s an escaped fugitive. He’s still; trying to escape, he was going to make off in all of the chaos with the paramedics and the hospital.” The agent sputtered almost incoherently in the wake of Deakins’ anger. Jonathan turned around to face the two bickering agents.

 

“And you think he couldn’t escape right now? Handcuffs are nothing to the two of these morons, isn’t that right, Black?” He could only smile sheepishly as he held up the unlocked cuffs on one finger.

 

The other agent gaped at Johnny. “That’s right. And with all due respect, I really need to be with my brother. If you want to arrest me for running away, can you give me a twelve-hour headstart? I’m telling you now, I’ll be at the hospital until you come to take me away.”

 

Deakins’s face shifted into something much softer in that moment. “We aren’t going to arrest you for tampering with your tracker. You alerted our agents to the mastermind of this heist and helped get one of the first good images of her for our case.” She paused, giving a cursory look at the people left remaining in the room, before looking back at the stunned man.

 

“Agent Kay will escort you to the hospital and be your guard for the first shift. I will let her know when she finishes giving her statement. Wait by the hallway until then.” She turned to go talk with another group of agents until she halted suddenly and turned back to face the pair. “Oh, and Agent Patterson. I would like you to write up all of the paperwork for the {blank name heist}. I expect it on my desk first thing in the morning.” She sent Black an almost imperceptible smirk and walked away. Agent Patterson sent him the dirtiest look he had received since leaving prison and also turned to leave.

 

With that handled, and seeing no other way to be close to Cameron any sooner, Jonathan went to the hallway and found a quiet place to sit for a moment.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Cameron was aware of was a warm grip on his hand. The grip was firm and the hand calloused and large, and Cameron would recognize that hand anywhere. He opened his eyes as fast as his drug-addled self could. He saw Jonathan flipping his lucky coin in his unoccupied hand, staring intently at the charts reading off what Cam assumed were his own vitals.

 

Cam squeezed Johnny’s hand and smiled when the coin fell from Johnny’s hand and his face lit up in relief. “Oh my god, Cameron. You’re finally awake.” Johnny leaned toward him and grabbed looked intensely at Cameron. “Are you feeling alright? You scared the hell outta all of us.”

 

Now that Johnny mentioned it, Cam wasn’t feeling alright. His head was pounding and his chest felt like it was on fire. Honestly, his whole body was on fire, seemingly burning from the inside out.

 

“Hot.” He croaked out after a moment. In his mind, he had crafted a beautiful statement about how hot he was, because wasn’t he always? But his throat was dry and wasn’t functioning well, so he just had to deal with his unimpressive performance skills for the moment. Cameron tried to sit up, but the tightness around his ribs really dug in and he coughed at the sudden flare up in pain.

 

“Woah there, pal. You are a mess of drugs and injuries right now. Better to take it easy, at least for the night.” Johnny had let go of his hand and grabbed his shoulders instead, easing him down onto the bed and causing Cam a lot less pain. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

 

Cameron blinked owlishly up at his twin, confusion clear across his unusually open face. “What happened? Did a trick go wrong?” Johnny’s guilt hit him full force at that moment; if he hadn’t hit Cameron (Henri?) as hard as he had, Cameron wouldn’t have as bad of a concussion.

 

“It’s okay buddy. And no, I’m in prison and you’re working for the FBI, remember?” Jonathan hated the recognition and then guilt that flashed across his younger brother’s face. “No, no, no. I’ve already had to watch the guilt play out one time. I don’t want to watch it another.”

 

“No, Johnny, you don’t understand. She— she had the video.” Cam winced from the exertion of speaking, and he was grasping desperately at his brother’s arms, almost clawing for release. But eventually, he collapsed in exhaustion. “The video, she had the video that would exonerate you. But I—I couldn’t give her the Lynx diamond, Johnny. I couldn’t betray Kay.” Cam slammed his head back against the pillow as dramatically as one with a concussion could.

 

Johnny grabbed now at Cameron’s head, holding it gently in place. “Didn’t you hear me? I said you had a concussion, so none of the theatric head bashing. You want to keep your brain between your ears, right?” Internally, Johnny was reeling. The video that Cam was referencing was supposedly nonexistent, or so the police said. If Cam had a chance to take it, why didn’t he? Why did he choose to not get it?

 

“Johnny I’m so sorry. She had it, I _saw_ it. She has the video, but I couldn’t get it. I— I couldn’t do it.” The somewhat sudden outburst from Cameron had apparently drained him, and his eyes started to flutter. All of the frenetic energy that was possessing him just moments ago fell from his body in one go. In what seemed like all of his remaining energy, Cam grasped desperately at Johnny’s hand. “I’m so sorry. I should have— I couldn’t.” Cam’s eyes, that had been wandering all over the room earlier, settled focused on Johnny. Tears started streaming from his eyes, tracing a trail behind his ears. “I wasn’t strong enough, Johnny.” His voice was starting to fade, and his eyes had closed. “I’ll be strong enough next time.”

 

Cameron had stilled completely, except for his even breathing. Jonathan had also stilled completely, waiting to process all of the information his brother had just spilled. He wasn’t sure he could trust any of it. Hell, Cameron hadn’t even remembered that Jonathan was supposed to be in prison. When he was finally sure that Cam had fallen asleep, and that he wasn’t going to fall himself, he lowered himself slowly into the chair he had occupied earlier.

 

“That’s a hell of a lot of information.” Johnathan’s heart rate shot right back up and he jumped out of his chair. Kay looked apologetic from the doorway. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Johnny snorted a bitter sort of laugh and sat back down.

 

“Nah, it’s okay. You just get sort of jumpy in prison.” He responded bitterly. Rubbing his face with one hand, finally letting it rest over his mouth, he added “We don’t even know if what he’s saying is true. I haven’t seen him this out of it since the last time he was in the hospital and he was drugged to the nines.” Kay raised one eyebrow at him from across the room. “Just a bad escape. He was out for a month, but spent about three days in the hospital. It wasn’t fun for any of us.”

 

It took Kay a long time to respond, it looked like she was sorting through several different responses at once. “I’m still sorry. I know how much that video means to you.”

 

“Yeah, well no shit. I know you throw people in prison for a living, but do you have any idea how hard it is to live there.” He was quiet for only a moment. “And that video was my key to getting out.” He tilted his head, looking intensely off into space, “well, at least my legal key.”

He looked back at Kay and could only see pity in her eyes. What _was it_ about Kay that made Cameron choose her over him? Jonathan took a deep breath and broke the situation into parts. As far as he could see, there were three parts to the situation all surrounding Kay. For one thing, she was the only one at the FBI that seemed to actually care about the Mystery Woman and hunting her down, and she was the only one who would let Cameron in on her cases and try to get further leads. She made him feel like his goal was actually achievable. Then, there was the guilt behind betraying her. Cameron couldn’t live with himself if he took down Kay’s career, and he almost certainly would of if he had willingly given the Mystery Woman the Lynx diamond.  The last thing that Cameron could see was their friendship. Kay was both smart and an incredibly quick learner, which was rarer than people often thought. She was also incredibly clever and quick witted, which made her a wonderful conversationalist. There was also a degree of mystery around her, as she wasn’t quick to give up much of anything regarding her history.

 

“Ohhh,” Johnny leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. Somewhere during his thoughts, he had fished out his coin and was fidgeting with it again. “I completely missed it.” Kay looked quizzically at him, he could tell even though he wasn’t looking at her by the intensity of her gaze. He turned to meet her eyes, “You’re totally his type.”

 

Several emotions flashed through Kay’s face before settling on confusion. “I don’t see how some arbitrary type has any effect on how Cameron acted—“

 

“It really doesn’t,” Johnny interrupted quickly to intercede her indignation. “I don’t think he knows yet. But he, he definitely was always going to choose you over me. He knows I can wait, but we don’t have a chance in hell without you on our side.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, by the way, for insinuating that he would choose you just because of some misplaced crush. You mean much more to him than that.”

 

Kay took that as a cue to finally enter the room and sit across from him. She seemed to be analyzing him just as intensely as he was earlier. “You and Cameron are very different. He pretends to always be right, and makes the situation turn out so he is. You, on the other hand, actually think you are always right and then you just like to watch.”

 

Jonathan reeled, feeling like he was struck. At first he was angry, but then he realized that she was analyzing what she had to go off of, and for that much, she was right. “You spend, what, 4 months with my brother and two days with me, and you think you know everything about us?”

 

“No, but if you were in my situation, you would think you knew everything.” She reclined gracefully in the uncomfortable plastic chair and smirked. He worked his mouth, knowing he was beat, but still looking for a respond.

 

The next moment, a nurse bustled in, checking his heart rate and oxygen levels before turning to them. “I’m gonna have to wake him up, just standard protocol for concussion patients.” Before either party could intercede, she was gently tapping on Cameron’s face. “Mr. Black, Mr. Black. I’m going to need you to wake up.” Cameron’s eyes creeped open and when he didn’t recognize the nurse, fear visibly crossed his expression.

 

Surprisingly to Johnny, Kay got to him before he did. “It’s okay, Cameron. You’re in the hospital and this is the nurse taking care of you.” Relief crossed his face and he reached desperately for her hand. She let her hand be taken in his desperate grasp, her eyes softening around the edges.

 

The nurse went about her work, asking Cameron about his pain levels and his memories of the past night. Johnny wasn’t surprised when Cam had no recollection of their conversation not fifteen minutes ago, or even what exactly happened that night. And when neither Kay nor Cameron let go of each other’s hands, he didn’t comment either.

 

Just because he was right all of the time, didn’t mean he had to comment on it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! Please review and tell me what you think!


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